Ryan Gosling

by Valentina Veneziano

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In today’s young and fascinating actors’ rankings, Ryan Gosling occupies a very high place. For his ability to shift from comedy to drama, for choosing tricky roles and embracing charitable causes. A young maudit

Ryan Gosling is laying on a mustard-hued sofa, his head resting on the legs of a model "transformed" into a skeleton. Perou, the photographer, decided to shoot him like that for Esquire Magazine, in 2011, after listening to the actor’s dreams. His passion for skeletons and ghosts dates back to his childhood and has brought Ryan, with his friend Zach Shields, to set up the indie rock band Dead Man’s Bones. While Hama Sanders, for the cover of GQ Germany (June 2014), portrayed Ryan playing with his dog George: at ease and smiling, wearing an unbuttoned checked coat. Ryan Gosling was born on 12 November 1980 in London, Ontario, Canada, from Mormon parents who separated when he was very young. Religion, his upbringing and subsequently the education he received at home by his mother and sister, deeply influenced Ryan, so much that he often repeats, during interviews the words “I think like a girl”.

He debuted on TV in 1993 with the Mickey Mouse Club alongside young fellow actors Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake. In 1995 he was cast for the TV seriesAre You Afraid of the Dark?, and then appeared inGoosebumps (1996), Breaker High (1997) and in Young Hercules (1998-99) in the leading role. In 1997 he started his dynamic and intense affair with cinema, which consecrated him as a highly versatile actor, a cross between Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. Frankenstein and Me (1997), The Unbelievables(1999) and Remember the Titans (2000) were his first roles, but The Believer (2001) was a true turning point. He looks restless, wearing a red sweatshirt in The United States of Leland (2003), crazy in love, in the 40s-set film The Notebook (2004), which will earn several nominations and the Best Kissprize at the MTV Movie Awards. He plays an art student suspended between life and death in Stay (2006) and the role of Dan in Half Nelson (2006), a young idealist, crack-addict professor who lives amid scruffy shirts and coffee thermo flasks, for which Ryan obtained his first Academy Awards nomination. He is poignant in the role of the introverted Lars in Lars and the Real Girl (2007), despotic and unfathomable in Love & Secrets(2010).

The year 2010 was decisive: he met and worked with Derek Cianfrance in Blue Valentinewhich he also produced, and he narrated and produced the documentary film ReGeneration about the cynical attitude towards social and political causes. He is looking for a motivation, wearing biker jackets and camel sweaters, in Blue Valentine, and is a stylish playboy in Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) alongside Emma Stone with whom he appeared also in Gangster Squad (2013). Drive (2011) marked the encounter with Nicolas Winding Refn, consolidated later on with Only God Forgives (2013) in which Ryan showed, through one-colored backdrops, narrow spaces and nocturnal atmospheres, the ability to communicate without words. George Clooney picked him for The Ides of March (2011), where he plays the role of Stephen, a brilliant press secretary, which earned him a nomination to the Golden Globes.

In 2014 he made his debut in directing with Lost River, became the dad of Esmeralda with partner Eva Mendes, started working on The Nice Guys and on a project with Terrence Malick. Ryan Gosling is a tireless activist: he supports the organization "Enough Project" (for which he has shot a video in Congo called “Raise Hope for Congo”), "Invisible Children" and PETA. His talent enabled him to interpret drama and comedy films in the same year (2011), he was funny in Ellen DeGeneres’ show pedaling and wearing PJs and laughed about himself when founding out he’s become a Web meme. Ryan Gosling has a great personality, and behaves as if he was wearing every single day a sateen bomber jacket with a scorpion emblazoned on the back, à la Drive, saying things like “The one thing I love most about being an adult is the right to buy candy whenever and wherever I want”.